Instagram updates app with new filter, 25 languages

After a week of angering fans, Instagram gives them an early Christmas present

After Instagram spent the last week or so angering its fans to the point where a number of them were on the verge of quitting the service (even Kim Kardashian said she was thinking of dropping it), the popular photo sharing service has spent the last two days trying to make it up to its legion of rioting fans.

After backtracking on its controversial terms of service from earlier this week on Thursday (more on that later), Instagram gave its users an early Christmas present Friday in the form of an updated iOS and Android app.

Included in the new version is a new filter called Mayfair, which “has a warm pink tone, subtle vignetting that brightens the center of the photograph, and a thin black border,” according to Instagram. The filter works well with the Lux feature, which helps users balance the exposure and brightness of their photos.

On the iOS version of the app, Instagram will now recognize if a user has enabled Facebook integration with iOS 6, so that their Instagram account will connect with Facebook without having to go through either the Facebook app or a browser.

Users can now also select photographs from an album other than the Camera Roll.

Instagram for Android features a new update for brands, which will allow Facebook Page moderators to connect and share directly to a brand page.

There were also various bug fixes included in the update.

With these updates, Instagram has to be hoping to stem at least some of the anger that emerged from is userbase when it updated its privacy policy page Monday to say that it would be sharing user data with Facebook so that pictures uploaded to Instagram could be used in advertisement on the service without user permission.

The backlash was fierce and, I must say, quite sudden. It was so bad, in fact, that Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom actually wrote a blogpost Thursday apologizing to fans, and saying that the company would be reverting back to its original terms of service from October 2010.

“Earlier this week, we introduced a set of updates to our privacy policy and terms of service to help our users better understand our service. In the days since, it became clear that we failed to fulfill what I consider one of our most important responsibilities – to communicate our intentions clearly. I am sorry for that, and I am focused on making it right,” Systrom wrote.

We’ll just have to see if updates like this do anything to help the situation.